Martin Scorsese Says His Next Film THE IRISHMAN Has Almost 300 Scenes!
Martin Scorsese isn't messing around with his new film The Irishman. He's going all out on this sucker and he shot almost 300 scenes for the film to prove it! In case you're wondering... that's a lot of scenes! That makes The Irishman the biggest production of his career and we probably won't even get to see it on the big screen! As you know, The Irishman is a Netflix exclusive. An average number of scenes shot for a film ranges from 40 to 60 scenes, so this movie is going to be epic.
Scorsese is certainly taking advantage of the opportunity that Netflix has given him and by the time the film is done, he will have spent over $140 million. A good chunk of that money is going to the effects department who are using CGI to digitally de-age several of the actors in the film including Robert De Niro, who stars in the film alongside Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel.
The filmmaker recently talked about the film at Cannes Film Festival and the challenges of shooting such a large scale film:
"In this latest film [The Irishman], there are so many scenes – almost 300 scenes – and it was hard to get to location, but when I got there I’d work out the angles. But it was primarily bringing out the actors and making the shoot comfortable. That became the mise-en-scène, for me. And that has a lot to do with On The Waterfront, East Of Eden, Wild River. Beautiful films. But Taxi Driver, Mean Streets and Goodfellas were all drawn."
Scorsese, who is also known to heavily storyboard his film, talked about the storyboarding process with his past film Raging Bull:
"All the boxing scenes in Raging Bull were designed on paper. We shot all the fight scenes first. Ten weeks. It was supposed to be three."
With The Irishman, Scorsese decided to cut back on the storyboards to focus on working with the actors:
"I’ve stopped doing drawings and notes for certain dialogue scenes. I need to work with the actors, be on the set. See the location."
I can't wait to see how this movie turns out! The film is based on Charles Brandt’s book, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa and there's a lot of controversy surrounding the story as it's based on the deathbed confession of Frank "The Irishman” Sheeran.
"The hit man claimed to tell the real story of the disappearance of former Teamsters boss Hoffa. However, the account Sheeran told to Brandt has been disputed. Still, the FBI actually thought enough of Sheeran’s confession to pull up several floor boards from a house where he said he shot and killed Hoffa to look for DNA evidence. Latter the bureau said that the samples found weren’t from Hoffa."
The movie also stars Anna Paquin, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham and Jesse Plemons. I included the full description of the book that it's based on below:
I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES is a fascinating account of a dark side of American history. The book’s title comes from the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors.
Frank Sheeran lived a long, violent, passionate life. As a boy he took on older kids in bar fights so his dad could win free beer. During World War II he was a highly decorated infantryman with 411 days of active combat duty and a willingness to follow orders. "When an officer would tell you to take a couple of German prisoners back behind the line and for you to ‘hurry back,’ you did what you had to do." He became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino and eventually becoming one of only two non-Italians on the FBI’s famous La Cosa Nostra list. He was also a truck driver who was made head of the Teamsters local in Wilmington, Delaware, by his good friend Jimmy Hoffa. When Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975, Sheeran became a leading suspect, and every serious study of the Hoffa disappearance alleges that Sheeran was there.
For the first time the Irishman tells all — a lifetime of payoffs (including hand-delivering bags of cash to Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell) and manipulation (supporting Joe Biden’s election to the Senate with a Teamster action) — for the book that would become his deathbed confession. He died on December 14, 2003.
Sheeran also provides shocking new information on notorious mob hits: Joseph "Crazy Joey" Gallo — blown away as he celebrated his forty-third birthday in New York’s Little Italy; Salvatore "Sally Bugs" Briguglio — long suspected of being a player in the plot to kill Hoffa. And offers new insights to the crusading of Robert Kennedy and the death of John F. Kennedy.
This historic account is based on interviews of Frank Sheeran by Charles Brandt, who researched, cross-checked, and illuminated what Sheeran told him and turned it all into a gripping narrative that is sure to become an instant true crime classic.
The movie will most likely be released on Netflix in 2019.
Via: GamesRadar